Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Seven Ingredients for Good Design…

By Audrey Treece



I am moving right along with my thesis work and after a great preliminary review; I am ready to start really designing. I have done tons and tons of “research” (although Dr. Wendler doesn’t understand what it means) and truly feel that I am at a point to move on. I have used all of the “research” that I have done to really wrap my head around the problem and fully understand the who, what, when, where, why and how of my project.

One resource that has been the most valuable to my project is by Anita Rui Olds titled the Child Care Design Guide. She wrote a book designated entirely to the design process of child care centers, if you didn’t already pick that up from the title, and covers everything from the dilemma of child care all the way to understanding the design process of architects. It has been the best resource guide that I could have got my hands on.

Part three is titled Ingredients of Good Design. It is complimented with seven chapters or topics that she, from all of her research and studies, believes are the most important to pay attention to during the process. The seven ingredients include healthy buildings, sounds, light and lighting, windows, doors and security, color, interior finishes and furnishings. After reading through all of these chapters, I realized that these “ingredients” are applicable to just about any project that you would work on. Although she references child care centers specifically, I highly suggest that all designers should take a few minutes to read through this part of the book and really think about how it affects their design. There are a lot of ideas expressed that are important to the well-being of people and how they use your building.

If you are like me and don’t have time to spare to read, refer to an excerpt from my preliminary presentation. We will call it the cheat sheet….

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